Google Maps Street View can be fantastically useful for getting a feel for a neighborhood, or taking a virtual walk between point A and point B if you are spectacularly bad at following directions, like I am. Now, in a bid to make its name even less relevant, Street View is once again expanding its scope beyond streets with the World Wonders Project. Now, you can “Street” View your way around over 100 famous historic sites.
Located in 18 different countries, the 132 famous destinations in the World Wonders Project include such classics as Stonehenge, Pompeii, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Yosemite National Park. As you’ve probably already realized, many of these places aren’t necessarily car-friendly, considering their lack of actual streets, but thanks to Google’s Street View Trikes, you’ll still get the same quality of super-tall-first-person camera shots you’ve come to expect.
Aside from just standard Street View photos, the World Wonder Project includes 3D models of some locations, and a bunch of supplementary YouTube videos to help flesh out the experience. Granted, none of this is going to beat actually going to these places, but it will beat sitting bored on your couch and never having even seen pictures of these places, and if the former isn’t possible for you, the latter ain’t a bad substitute.
(via Official Google Blog)
